Shocker: Massive aid does not mean improvement

posted at 12:50 pm on April 9, 2010 by Ed Morrissey

Do massive donations of cash as aid to poor nations allow them to focus on structural improvements and increased spending on health? Or does that money allow corrupt governments to divert resources that they would have spent on those issues to other priorities? A new study by Lancet strongly suggests the latter — even when the donors believe they have secured the distribution of the funds:

After getting millions of dollars to fight AIDS, some African countries responded by slashing their health budgets, new research says.

For years, the international community has forked over billions in health aid, believing the donations supplemented health budgets in poor countries. It now turns out development money prompted some governments to spend on entirely different things, which cannot be tracked. The research was published Friday in the medical journal Lancet. …

The research raises questions about whether international aid is sometimes detrimental. Previous studies have found pricey United Nations health initiatives haven’t paid off and occasionally hurt health systems. Experts estimate about half of international health aid can’t be traced in the budgets of receiving countries.

Murray’s paper also found debt relief had no effect on health spending. Activists like Bob Geldof and Bono have long argued canceling African debts would allow countries to spend more on their health problems, but there was no evidence of that.

“When an aid official thinks he is helping a low-income African patient avoid charges at a health clinic, in reality, he is paying for a shopping trip to Paris for a government minister and his wife,” said Philip Stevens, of the London-based think tank International Policy Network. He was not linked to the study.

What can we learn from this study that we really should have already known?

Money is fungible – Giving block grants to a state for one purpose doesn’t mean that the purpose gets more money. It allows the state to divert its already-committed resources to other purposes. We’ve learned that here in the US with Porkulus block grants to states. Without accountability, that money can go anywhere and either directly or indirectly feed the corruption at the heart of Africa’s problems.

Corruption is the root cause of nationwide poverty – We have sent monetary aid to Africa for decades in attempts to fix the problems of poverty and disease. That should tell us that money isn’t really the root problem in these countries. The governments, mostly corrupt dictatorships, create the problems through outright theft or the imposition of incompetent central economic planning. In Zimbabwe, for just one example, it’s both. That nation’s land used to provide for much of Africa’s food, and now it can’t even feed itself.

We need to change direction in Africa – None of us want to see an entire continent fail, but we apparently have two choices. Either we drop billions on Africa every year in aid that extends the status quo, or we cut off the aid and force African nations to change from within. The US had moved toward the latter in the last few years, but guilt-trip initiatives (however well meaning) keep putting political pressure on nations to maintain the status quo.

If we really want to solve the problem of poverty and illness in Africa, we need to demand political reform. Everything else is a band-aid, and not the kind of Band Aid that means aging rockers taking to the stage on G-20 conferences.

Either we drop billions on Africa every year in aid that extends the status quo, or we cut off the aid and force African nations to change from within.

I don’t mind helping others, but if we don’t have the money to help ourselves how can we help others. Unfortunatly we are going to have to start cutting back and this should be the first place to start cuts. Once we get our financial house in order we can start giving again but until then we need to rein in the spending.

Why does this remind me of our education system? Sure, there isn’t the obvious corruption of spending sprees in Paris, but having a golden parachute that’s nicer than 90% of the private sector is pretty freaking sweet too…

OK, we should give those billion$ to the United Nations …yeah, the U.N. and let them administer it in those countries. Yeah, then we can sleep easy knowing that it’s doing the good it was meant for.’night.

We, in this country, may be approaching the point where we have to look after ourselves for a while. I do not expect to see us being substantially helped by the rest of the world(and I, for one, wouldn’t want their help anyway).

I don’t mind helping others, but if we don’t have the money to help ourselves how can we help others.

Brat4life on April 9, 2010 at 12:54 PM

+1.

We have not one single cent in the bank to throw at the Turd-World masses or use our military for anything but defense of the US. No money for anything at all but the most critical functions of government.

Unfortunately we’ve gotten ourselves so badly addicted that going cold turkey would be disastrous. Imagine, say, the scene in our cities if was abruptly cut off. Or the international consequences if we withdrew all our foreign-stationed troops.

It should also prove that AIDS is a cultural problem, not a financial problem.

The left sincerely believes that anyCulture + enoughMoney == Utopia, when the opposite is usually true. This helps them to explain the greatness of America without calling America great and keeps them from having to “judge” other cultures, so they can maintain their illusion of moral equivalence.

This is a great follow up to the “Bush did good for Africans with AIDS” story.

If you’re a tin pot African dictator, might it be in your best interest to have as many AIDS patients as possible? Further, might it be in you’re best interest to call every little sniffle to a broken fingernail AIDS?

I’ve read elsewhere that pregnancy symptoms are included in the definition of AIDS – just to get more foreign aid.

James Shikwati of Kenya, I think, has long argued that the West should stop giving aid to Africa because of the negative effective of aid on African growth and development. Nobody has been listening to Shikwati; maybe now they will. Every African I talk to says they don’t want aid. Nobody listens to them. Everybody listens to their corrupt governments.

I don’t mind helping others, but if we don’t have the money to help ourselves how can we help others. Unfortunatly we are going to have to start cutting back and this should be the first place to start cuts. Once we get our financial house in order we can start giving again but until then we need to rein in the spending.

Brat4life on April 9, 2010 at 12:54 PM

I think you missed the point. The point is that giving free money to people isn’t “helping” them at all, in fact it does a whole lot more damage than good. This is true both for America’s welfare state and our foreign aid.

Pumping free money into a failed system is like giving free booze to an alcoholic so you don’t have to watch them go through DTs. The only things it accomplishes is making you feel good and preventing them from having to solve their problem.

If welfare was cut off tomorrow, the people rioting in the streets would be the government workers who handled welfare issues, not the recipients.
SEIU and other labor organizations would be going bonkers, the recipients would be trying to find jobs.

2) You yourself dismissed Lancet a year ago, saying, “Maybe someone should put the Lancet out of our misery.” But now we’re supposed to take this study at face value because it happens to agree with your personal and political beliefs? There’s something awfully inconsistent about that….

in other shocking news, when the poor are handed money and said they don’t need to work for it, it still doesn’t help them to be motivated.

upinak on April 9, 2010 at 1:11 PM

Amen to that. Look at how much we as a country have spent trying to eradicate poverty right here at home. Billions of dollars spent over that last 40-50 years and low and behold we still have poverty. By giving people money for not doing anything gives them no incentive to do anything. It is amazing to me that we are more concerned about the misappropreation of our tax dollars overseas than we are about the money that is being re-directed right here at home. It’s sick.

I have always been an advocate of fix your own house first. Take the money go into one area,say Detroit, build new schools, staff them with teachers that give a crap so you can get the kids educated. Give business the incentive to locate there. Once done move on to the next area. Pouring money into anything without control is frickin stupid. Oh wait, that’s US.

If we really want to solve the problem of poverty and illness in Africa, we need to demand political reform. Everything else is a band-aid, and not the kind of Band Aid that means aging rockers taking to the stage on G-20 conferences.

Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach him how to fish and he eats for a lifetime.

I have always felt when it comes to situations like Africa and its suffering people or any other downtrodden group/people that eventually those that give in good faith to help those in need to change their situation for the better must also at some point honestly evaluate if their goodwill is being misused and if so stop giving.

It may seem harsh to withhold donations and not give when so many are needlessly suffering but at some point a stand must be taken! Either they (those in power in the African governments) use the money as it was meant to be used (for the benefit of their people and not government cronies) to build their infrastructure, create jobs and a sustainable economy to eventually lift their people from the continuous cycle of poverty they are in or let them sink to a point where the people will rise up and throw off the chains of poverty their despot leaders have them in.

This is no different than some of my friends of the past, they found themselves in dire financial straights at a point in their lives (as many of us do at some point in time in our lives) and being the giving and caring person I am I had no problem lending a helping hand until they could stand on their own. However, friend or not if eventually it becomes obvious they are not doing their part to help themselves then I feel no obligation or guilt in continuing to help them if they are not willing to help themselves…the gravy-train comes to a screeching halt and that’s what needs to happen in Africa, it’s called tough love!

The left sincerely believes that anyCulture + enoughMoney == Utopia, when the opposite is usually true. This helps them to explain the greatness of America without calling America great and keeps them from having to “judge” other cultures, so they can maintain their illusion of moral equivalence.

As that great politial orator Sam Kinison once said when referring to trucks of food continuiously being sent to Africa to help the starving people, “Take the people where the food is. One trip. You’re done!”

That’s like this administration sending weapons to the “government” in Somalia to help them fight piracy and Islamic terrorism. That’s right, I said it…ISLAMIC TERRORISM. Guess whose hands they wound up in? Pirates and terrorists. Duh. SMART power!

I have always maintained NOT giving monetary or even other types of aid to countries that can’t get their act together.
I can see aid in the form of volunteering your time & services etc. like doctors & nurses do.
But giving these corrupt govts $$ & even food & medecine is letting the bad guys continue their rape & pillage of their own people.
I used to get people telling me that opening up trade w/ China was such a wonderful thing for the Chinese people bcs it allowed them to get a taste of freedom.
They’re still not free.
The only reason the American experiment has worked so well so far is bcs we had the right mix of people at the right time.
I truly believe that some cultures & peoples just cannot handle freedom. If you do not earn it, you will never appreciate it or be able to keep it.
Which is why there is so much strife everywhere.
People are so damned fickle. They forget what tyranny is like & will trade off their freedoms bit by bit for false security.
Africa & other countries need to earn their govt.

You mean “the U.S. invasion of Iraq has killed 655,000 civilians” Lancet?

No matter; Corruption is the root cause of nationwide poverty has been substantiated from other sources so many times, since the twilight of European colonialism in the 1960s, that systemic corruption is practically a job qualification in most any African administration.

In this corruptions wake are an endless cycle of regional warlords, land mismanagement, failed crops, failed markets, droughts, famines, and horrific pandemics.

Add to that misery the rapid rise of blood thirsty Islamic regimes in many North African countries – regimes willing to slaughter wholesale any one deemed “other” – and Western money is nothing more than a slush fund for weapons, bribes, and drugs.

Heredity may cause differences and noting them may or not be offensive but the noting is not of itself evidence of injury or race hate.

Conversely, to deny the intrinsic value of another human being is to deny their right to exist or prosper.

Harm then occurs from the unwillingness, to give credit where credit is due.

Racism cannot be simple acknowledgement nor can it be the feeling of personal offence alone; damage born of hatred is the actual rejection of earned human worth.

Unintended or pragmatic speech cannot be evidence of damage as the rejection of human worth is not present by accident or sans honesty.

One person’s opinion or slightful speech is not a green flag in order to initiate a gold rush toward artificial race absolution.
None among us retains the incredible wisdom to determine which has the right to be harmed by personal offence nor has Solomon’s wisdom to envision disparity and determine who has the obligation to suffer an unequal justice and deprivation of rights so to elevate the rights of another,
All are equally protected under the law.

A few years ago, Kim du Toit pretty much summed this up in his post Let Africa Sink.

greggriffith on April 9, 2010 at 1:25 PM

I read this. I’ve met several South Africans who come to ND as custom combiners.
The sentiments are always like her article.
I feel the same way about the Middle East.
If people can’t pick themselves up out of the gutter & make themselves a govt, we can’t do it for them.
This is why we took immigrants.
So people of the world could come here & contribute to freedom.
Too bad that’s not been the case anymore.

Other then natural disasters, the giving of medicines, water, tents etc, I don’t believe in ANY taxpayer dollars whatsoever for foreign aid. WHY? Because most monies given are not
accountable, or ever paid back…hence, easily ripped off, or potential kick backs.

The problem here is the fear of American Imperialism, so instead we spend billions … excuse me, we waste billions of dollars. We should simply offer to run the country. While the bumbling dictators would hate us and so would the leftists, the people who finally would have clean water, food and most importantly security would love us.

We should simply offer to run the country. While the bumbling dictators would hate us and so would the leftists, the people who finally would have clean water, food and most importantly security would love us.

odannyboy on April 9, 2010 at 3:01 PM

I say go the other way. Build an impregnable dome over the US (temporary, of course). Stop all comms with the outside. Wait about 10-20 years (ignoring the muffled “boom” sounds on the outside).

Then, when its been quiet for a period of time, take some air samples, send out a few drones…some satellite surveillance. Confirm the world has thrown it’s hissy fit and is either getting along nicely, or annihilated.

Either way, we win.

Or, it you really want to get extreme….move to Mars. Set up a planetary defense system so that anything nearing the planet on a course from Earth gets blown to bits before it enters the atmosphere. I’ll take a copy of the Constitution with me, and only those folks who understand and believe in it. It would be interesting to see which planet thrives. The one with Democracy, or the one with Universal Health Care.

I’ll take a copy of the Constitution with me, and only those folks who understand and believe in it. It would be interesting to see which planet thrives. The one with Democracy, or the one with Universal Health Care.

Here is a summary of the actual Lancet Article
The article recommend standardized monitoring and “targets”. Not canceling “aid” when fraudulently used. That has always worked in the past – NOT! The real problems are fraud and corruption. The real fix is failure of governments. Compassion is a noble personal attribute but an absolute failure for policy.

It’s not about whether the aid is effective. It’s about the “north versus south” nations. Rich versus poor. This study is nothing new.

Western nations, the UN, NGO’s, etc. just want the transfer of wealth from the middle and upper middle classes in western nations to third world countries. It’s a marxist thing. We’re bad, they’re good.

George W., early in his administration, tried to structure aid so that it was based on measurable goals. Liberals howled.

The only time our socialist elites will stop the aid is after they’ve impoverished us. We’ll be equal to the miserable third worlders. Mission accomplished.

If our current approach cannot be made to work, there are two polar extremes from which to begin our thinking–and we want to depart from them as quickly as possible.

First, to seal Africa off, to stop buying oil, diamonds, molybdinum, etc., and stop all arms traffic in. Hard, but largely doable if we get the international system stable and sane for a while.

Second, a new colonialism. Nations that were British colonies have prospered to a greater or lesser degree (Rhodesia being a conspicuous exception as they have thrown away the values of the Anglosphee); other former colonies have lost all semblence of civil society and use their technology to produce ilth instead of wealth. Cure the Western economies of Marxist diseases and then occupy Africa by military force for three generations. This requires that we stop hating ourselves for crimes we didn’t commit and embrace the principles that started to make us great.

We need better choices, but these give us starting points. Neither is fully practicable–today. Neither is fully acceptible–today. But we are liable to be thrown towards one or the other, just as we tried abandoning our inner cities after they were poisoned by The Great Society.